Synthpop (also known as technopop[2]) is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Krautrock" of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late-1970s to the mid-1980s.

In the late 1980s, duos such as Erasure and Pet Shop Boys adopted a sound that was highly successful on the US dance charts, but by the end of the decade synthpop had largely been abandoned. Interest began to be revived in the indietronica and electroclash movements in the late 1990s and, in the first decade of the 21st century, it enjoyed a widespread revival with commercial success for acts including La Roux, Lady Gaga, Kesha, and Owl City.

The genre has received criticism for alleged lack of emotion and musicianship; prominent artists have spoken out against detractors who believed that synthesizers themselves composed and played the songs. Some artists like Depeche Mode, who helped popularise the genre, were criticised for gender bending. Synthpop helped to establish the place of the synthesizer as a major element of pop and rock music, directly influenced subsequent genres including house music and Detroit techno, and has indirectly influenced many other genres and individual recordings.

Synthpop was defined by its primary use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers, sometimes using them to replace all other instruments. Borthwick and Moy have described the genre as diverse but "...characterised by a broad set of values that eschewed rock playing styles, rhythms and structures", which were replaced by "synthetic textures" and "robotic rigidity", often defined by the limitations of the new technology,[3] including monophonic synthesizers (only able to play one note at a time).[4] Many synthpop musicians had limited musical skills, relying on the technology to produce or reproduce the music. The result was often minimalist, with grooves that were "typically woven together from simple repeated riffs often with no harmonic 'progression' to speak of".[5] Early synthpop has been described as "eerie, sterile, and vaguely menacing", using droning electronics with little change in inflection.[6][7] Common lyrical themes of synthpop songs were isolation, urban anomie, and feelings of being emotionally cold and hollow.[8]

In its second phase in the 1980s,[8] the introduction of dance beats and more conventional rock instrumentation made the music warmer and catchier and contained within the conventions of three-minute pop.[6][7] Synthesizers were increasingly used to imitate the conventional and clichéd sound of orchestras and horns. Thin, treble-dominant, synthesized melodies and simple drum programmes gave way to thick, and compressed production, and a more conventional drum sound.[9] Lyrics were generally more optimistic, dealing with more traditional subject matter for pop music such as romance, escapism and aspiration.[8] According to music writer Simon Reynolds, the hallmark of 1980s synthpop was its "emotional, at times operatic singers" such as Marc Almond, Alison Moyet and Annie Lennox.[7] Because synthesizers removed the need for large groups of musicians, these singers were often part of a duo where their partner played all the instrumentation.[8]

Although synthpop in part arose from punk rock, it abandoned punk's emphasis on authenticity and often pursued a deliberate artificiality, drawing on the critically derided forms such as disco and glam rock.[3] It owed relatively little to the foundations of early popular music in jazz, folk music or the blues,[3] and instead of looking to America, in its early stages, it consciously focused on European and particularly Eastern European influences, which were reflected in band names like Spandau Ballet and songs like Ultravox's "Vienna".[10] Later synthpop saw a shift to a style more influenced by other genres, such as soul music.[10]

Early guitar-based punk rock that came to prominence in the period 1976-77 was initially hostile to the "inauthentic" sound of the synthesizer,[3] but many new wave and post-punk bands that emerged from the movement began to adopt it as a major part of their sound. British punk and New wave clubs were open to what was then considered an "alternative" sound.[20][21] The do it yourself attitude of punk broke down the progressive rock era's norm of needing years of experience before getting up on stage to play synthesizers.[16][21] The American duo Suicide, who arose from the post-punk scene in New York, utilised drum machines and synthesizers in a hybrid between electronics and post-punk on their eponymous 1977 album.[22]

—This quote is a take on a the punk manifesto This is, a chord, this is another, this is a third...now start a band celebrating the virtues of amateur musicianship first appeared in a fanzine in December 1976.[39]

British punk-influenced band Tubeway Army, intended their debut album to be guitar driven. In 1978, Gary Numan, a member of the group, found a minimoog left behind in the studio by another band, and started experimenting with it.[40] This led to a change in the album's sound to electronic new wave.[40] Numan later described his work on this album as a guitarist playing keyboards, who turned "punk songs into electronic songs".[40] A single from the album, "Are Friends Electric?", topped the UK charts in the summer of 1979.[41] The discovery that synthesizers could be employed in a different manner from that used in progressive rock or disco, prompted Numan to go solo.[41] On his futuristic album The Pleasure Principle (1979), he played only synths, but retained a bass guitarist and a drummer for the rhythm section.[41] A single from the album, "Cars" topped the charts.[42]

The emergence of synthpop has been described as "perhaps the single most significant event in melodic music since Mersey-beat". By the 1980s synthesizers had become much cheaper and easier to use.[45] After the definition of MIDI in 1982 and the development of digital audio, the creation of purely electronic sounds and their manipulation became much simpler.[46] Synthesizers came to dominate the pop music of the early 1980s, particularly through their adoption by bands of the New Romantic movement.[47]

The New Romantic scene had developed in the London nightclubs Billy's and The Blitz and was associated with bands such as Duran Duran, Visage, and Spandau Ballet.[48] They adopted an elaborate visual style that combined elements of glam rock, science fiction and romanticism. Duran Duran have been credited with incorporating dance beats into synthpop to produce a catchier and warmer sound, which provided them with a series of hit singles.[6] They would soon be followed into the British charts by a large number of bands utilising synthesizers to create catchy three-minute pop songs.[9] A new line-up for the Human League along with a new producer and a more commercial sound led to the album Dare (1981), which produced a series of hit singles. These included "Don't You Want Me", which reached number one in the UK at the end of 1981.[49]

Synthpop reached its commercial peak in the UK in the winter of 1981–2, with bands such as Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Japan, Ultravox, Depeche Mode and even Kraftwerk, enjoying top ten hits. In early 1982 synthesizers were so dominant that the Musicians Union attempted to limit their use.[50] By the end of 1982, these acts had been joined in the charts by synth-based singles from Thomas Dolby, Blancmange, and Tears for Fears. The proliferation of acts led to an anti-synth backlash, with groups including Spandau Ballet, Human League, Soft Cell and ABC incorporating more conventional influences and instruments into their sounds.[51]

In the US, where synthpop is considered a subgenre of new wave and was described as "technopop" by the press at the time,[2] the genre became popular due to the cable music channel MTV, which reached the media capitals of New York City and Los Angeles in 1982. It made heavy use of style-conscious New Romantic synthpop acts,[9][38] with "I Ran (So Far Away)" (1982) by A Flock of Seagulls generally considered the first hit by a British act to enter the Billboard Top Ten as a result of exposure through video.[38] The switch to a "new music" format in US radio stations was also significant in the success of British bands.[38] The success of synthpop and other British acts would be seen as a Second British Invasion.[38] Synthpop was taken up across the world, with international hits for acts including Men Without Hats and Trans X from Canada, Telex from Belgium, Propaganda from Germany,[52] and Yello from Switzerland.[53]

In the mid-1980s, key artists included solo performer Howard Jones, who S.T. Erlewine has stated to have "merged the technology-intensive sound of new wave with the cheery optimism of hippies and late-'60s pop",[54] (although with notable exceptions including the lyrics of "What Is Love?" - "Does anybody love anybody anyway?") and Nik Kershaw, whose "well-craft synthpop"[55] incorporated guitars and other more traditional pop influences that particularly appealed to a teen audience.[56] Pursuing a more dance-orientated sound were Bronski Beat whose album The Age of Consent (1984), dealing with issues of homophobia and alienation, reached the top 20 in the UK and top 40 in the US.[57] and Thompson Twins, whose popularity peaked in 1984 with the album Into The Gap, which reached No.1 in the UK and the US top ten and spawned several top ten singles.[58] Initially dismissed in the music press as a "teeny bop sensation" were Norwegian band a-ha, whose use of guitars and real drums produced an accessible form of synthpop, which, along with a MTV friendly video, took single "Take On Me" (1985) to number two in the UK and number one in the US.[59]

An American backlash against European synthpop has been seen as beginning in the mid-1980s with the rise of heartland rock and roots rock.[67] In the UK the arrival of indie rock bands, particularly The Smiths, has been seen as marking the end of synth-driven new wave and the beginning of the guitar-based music that would dominate rock into the 1990s.[68][69] By 1991, in the United States synthpop was losing its commercial viability as alternative radio stations were responding to the popularity of grunge rock.[70] Exceptions that continued to pursue forms of synthpop or rock in the 1990s were Savage Garden, The Rentals, and The Moog Cookbook.[65] Electronic music was also explored from the early 1990s by indietronica bands like Stereolab and Disco Inferno, who mixed a variety of indie and synthesizer sounds.[71]

Indietronica began to take off in the new millennium as the new digital technology developed, with acts such as Broadcast from the UK, Justice from France, Lali Puna from Germany, and Ratatat and The Postal Service from the US, mixing a variety of indie sounds with electronic music, largely produced on small independent labels.[71][72] Similarly, the electroclash subgenre began in New York at the end of the 1990s, combining synthpop, techno, punk and performance art. It was pioneered by I-F with their track "Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass" (1998),[73] and pursued by artists including Felix da Housecat,[74]Peaches, Chicks on Speed,[75] and Fisherspooner.[76] It gained international attention at the beginning of the new millennium and spread to scenes in London and Berlin, but rapidly faded as a recognizable genre as acts began to experiment with a variety of forms of music.[77]

Synthpop has received considerable criticism and even prompted hostility among musicians and in the press. It has been described as "anaemic"[117] and "soulless".[118] Synthpop's early steps, and Gary Numan in particular, were also disparaged in the British music press of the late 1970s and early 1980s for their German influences[16] and characterised by journalist Mick Farren as the "Adolf Hitler Memorial Space Patrol".[119] In 1983, Morrissey of The Smiths stated that "there was nothing more repellent than the synthesizer".[9] During the decade, objections were raised to the quality of compositions[120] and the limited musicianship of artists.[121] Gary Numan observed "hostility" and "a lot of ignorance" toward synthpop, with detractors erroneously believing that "machines did it".[122]

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark frontman Andy McCluskey recalled a great many people "who thought that the equipment wrote the song for you", and asserted: "Believe me, if there was a button on a synth or a drum machine that said 'hit single', I would have pressed it as often as anybody else would have – but there isn't. It was all written by real human beings, and it was all played by hand".[123]

According to Simon Reynolds, in some quarters synthesizers were seen as instruments for "effete poseurs", in contrast to the phallic guitar.[120] The association of synthpop with an alternative sexuality was reinforced by the images projected by synthpop stars, who were seen as gender bending, including Phil Oakey's asymmetric hair and use of eyeliner, Marc Almond's "pervy" leather jacket, skirt wearing by figures including Martin Gore of Depeche Mode and the early "dominatrix" image of Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics. In the US this led to British synthpop artists being characterised as "English haircut bands" or "art fag" music.[120] Although some audiences were overtly hostile to synthpop, it achieved an appeal among those alienated from the dominant heterosexuality of mainstream rock culture, particularly among gay and female audiences.[120][121]

^M. Spicer (2010), "Reggatta de Blanc: analysing style in the music of the police", in J. Covach and M. Spicer eds, Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music, University of Michigan Press, pp. 124–49, ISBN0-472-03400-6

^"Gary Numan interview". BBC Breakfast. 15 May 2012. Event occurs at 8:56 am. BBC One. British Broadcasting Corporation. "There was a certain amount of hostility to electronic music when it first came along. People didn't think it was real music; they thought machines did it. There was a lot of ignorance, to be honest."